Wednesday, 22 March 2017

I always wondered how you could get to
that point and want someone to cut you open.

I always wondered, until it happened to me.

My Timehop
is a good reminder of what happened a year ago, or two or three years ago. It
serves to remind me just how things have improved.

It allows me to reflect and really
contemplate what has happened, how much I put up with, how long I was unwell
for and just what exactly was my reality for so long.

After I realise that, adding scars to
my body are nothing compared to how well I feel now.

I didn’t expect surgery to fix me, not
at all. I expected some sort of medication regime to kick in once I’d recovered
from my first surgery. I expected a lot and none of it happened. And that is
just how it happens for some people. I didn’t moan too much – I wasn’t sure of
what should happen, let alone how I would feel about it all – and I took it, I
hope, in my stride. I’m sure those closest to me would beg to differ but we don’t
talk about last summer a lot; as if it didn’t happen. I only got frustrated and
angry when things just kept going wrong. And it was a constant battle
to explain how my symptoms and side effects kept spiralling and no one at the
hospital had any clue as what to do with me, on a small scale, when ‘things’
were just two or three things. By the time it got to being utter shite and my
problems were six or seven deep, I had
to call it quits. I had to be seen
and refuse discharge until I was happy. That was my plan on the morning on
August 12th 2016.

Don’t get me wrong, I am stronger
because of my scars, even though they are signs of a weakness in my skin and
muscles. They are scars from a long and hard battle with Crohn’s Disease.

My battle is not over. It won’t ever
be over.

But I fight when I need to fight. I am
stronger and wiser and more sure of what I can take, these days.

And have my scars meant I’ve got a higher quality of life?

HECK YES.

Do I regret my past?

No. It’s shaped my present and future.
My scars have this ability to remind me to not be ashamed of giving as good as
you can give, at the time.

My stomach is not perfect, it never
has been. I’d like it to be flatter but I have time to work on that. I admire
it – the slight crookedness of the midline scar; the
thickening at the top, the dip from my wound infection, the faded laparoscopic
incisions. It is all the map of me.